Hey what do you know there are idiots who drive on the road, about 1 hour ago some idiot in a Nissan Extera decided to make a U-turn on the far right lane and smashed into my cavalier that was on the left lane, by the looks of it the frame got bent and the the fender is gone on the right side, funny the engine didn't even feel the crash it keeped purring afterwards, and according to the cops wrote on the report that it was the other guys fault and his plates are overdue also so he got a ticket now heres my question from i was able to tell the frame is slightly bent and the fenders gone but thats easy enough the engine didn't feel the impact from what i could see the engine mounts are ok so should i fix her up and keep going or get me a new J i have put about 2 grand in her and the engines got 90,000 miles
FIX IT!!! i did mine at least new crushguard bumper and hood though so it wasn't too bad well she stille needs the brackets either bent out or new ones that hold the crushguard
WOW thats one really long sentence.
i doubt there is frame damage, first the cavalier is a uni-body car. from what i gathered from your post, it sounds like the other driver hit you in the fender. the xterra is pretty high up so most likely the frame rail/rad support got crunched. should be an easy fix, if you don't want to pull the rail (if it's damaged) then a good body shop can do it.
if the entire front corner is pushed in it might be time to look at another car. if a rad support/frame rail is heavily damaged you need to remove it and weld a new one on.
im not a body guy, but i see a lot of wrecks and rebuilt wrecks every day. so thats just my 2cents.
http://registry.gmenthusiast.com/images/my2005cav/my%20car%20the%20bash.jpg
thx and i thought the same thing but i needed another opinion
well... punctuation might help... and pictures. None of us body people on here can tell you really much of anything without seeing some damage... and even then it's hard to say for certain without actually tearing the car apart and looking for any "inside" damage, but pictures are helpful... no one can really even give you a good idea without any pics of the damage.
I've had people explain damage to me over the phone that was way worse then they described, as well as people who've described damage that was not nearly as bad as they made it sound... so......
If its his fault, he SHOULD have to pay... In that case, i think you should get it fixed, and make pay the bill. Maybe get new paint all over aswell... J/k
If he is at fault he is responsible...get some toyo fenders
take it to a shop and get an estimate. you may have to go to several and get several estimates. submit them to his insurance and they will cut a check to get it fixed. go get the parts you need and fix it yourself for about 1/3 of the price and use the rest to do whatever
the way i understand it once you've bent a unibody car's "frame"... ur basically screwed.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Friday, September 14, 2007 3:33 PM
ok guys and girls this is going to be a long post on frame rails and frame work and all that fancy @!#$
uni-bodys do have frame rails lower and upper, and rear frame rails as well, just becasue the frame rails are swayed to one side does not mean that the car is totaled
frame rails are fixable, going by the bend or kink rule, why do you think frame rails and any other structual part of a car has whats called convultions in the metal
those are made to either bend or kink, so according to i-car if the convulted area is bent it is fixable if it is kinked then it has to be replaced
there are allot of companies in the market that make cumputer measuring systems why ?? so we can fix frame rails, core supports upper rails, so on and so forth, so in your case where the car was struck in the fender and pushed over, it is fixable, but dont forget the other side moves too so both frame rails have to be pulled back
and then when that happens, the core supprt and the upper tie bar has to be pulled back as well as well as the lower aprons, then what about the other side parts are probably damaged as well
so replacing a frame rail is easliey done with allot of experience measurments, and sometimes the computerized measuring system, 2 things about replacing a rail,
1. splicing a rail is accpeted, by using a butt wled with backing or using the open butt with sleeve, and you never ever splice by the convoluted area it is spliced 3 inches from that area
2. replacing the entire rail the front rail goes all the way to the middle of the car the rear goes past the trunk floor
state farm and allstate pays 85 a book hour for frame work, they have set up the the frame rack, pull time and we get paid to measure as well, so all that adds up plus parts plus labor fixing this car your self is going to get expensive, and if ya go pay out of pocket here is what my shop charges for frame work is up to 85 and body labor is up to 65 so ya might want to go through insurance
so when the car is on the rack on the pinch weld clamps, then the pulling begins, pullin back slowly and hitting the rest of the arear on the rails and core support to release the tension from the hit,,, most of the time over pulling because high strentgh steel bounces back when you pull you pull the way the car was hit
stoppin to measure, pull more pull more measure more pull more measure more, DO NOT USE HEAT ON FRAME RAILS!!!!! using heat changes the metal making the high strenght steel weak and the rail is unsafe we pull using no heat
then fitting the new sheet metal headlights making the gaps perfect if they are not and nothing is going good more pullin more measuring,
i think ya get the idea it is not easy it is a dangerous machine using over 10 tons of pulling force, i seen clamps and chains go through concrete, knock people out cold and off the rack, the frame rack is for the experienced tech and not for the back alley body man
so i say go through insurance if not leave it alone or you bank account will be empty by the time ya done lol
can i haz bondo
